


Fat Weed

by vitaminanime



Category: Original Work
Genre: Actors, Author was Depressed, Deities, Fables - Freeform, Ghost Tours, Inspired by Greek Mythology, Inspired by Shakespeare, One's Lot in Life, Whimsy, embalming, movies - Freeform, product placement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-24 21:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22064722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vitaminanime/pseuds/vitaminanime
Summary: A weed on the shores of Lethe longs to be a deity who fell from Olympus to entertain mortals.





	Fat Weed

_And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed that roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, wouldst thou not stir in this. _-Hamlet, scene 5, act 1__

__Once upon a time there was a fat weed that rooted itself on the shores of the River Lethe. The weed was obscenely lazy, as weeds that grow on the shores of the Lethe are wont to be._ _

__However every night, the weed would crawl out of Hades to entertain the living. For argument's sake, the weed had knees, and the weed would scrape her knees on the sharp rocks that encircled Hades. She would then assume the form of a human shade, throw a Milk Bone to Cerberus, show her sentry card to the Ferryman, and begin her journey up the Styx into the mortal world._ _

__

__Once she arrived in the mortal world, she would head to the nearest mortuary to get embalmed. It was very painful to get the trocar inserted and to be pumped full of pink formaldehyde, but she did it anyway so nobody would know she was older than she looked._ _

__She would then spend hours telling campy ghost stories to tourists. She was very bad at it. She slurred words and forgot lines. People complained that she either overacted or underacted. But once it was all over, "actual proof" that ghosts exist distributed and tips reeled in, she would leave the mortal world behind._ _

__The weed did not spend much time in the mortal world, but she knew of moving pictures and the actors who performed in them. Lesser deities who had fallen from Mount Olympus to entertain mortals. They would work sixteen hour days and starve themselves and go on high protein diets to get the bodies of the gods that they were. (Human food is far more fattening than ambrosia and nectar.). They would learn choreography and fight in mock battles that looked so real they rang with heraldic fury. They put on such brilliant performances it was if they had actually become the character, that the character's actual blood flowed out during the heart-rending ending scene, when the fact of the matter was that it was not blood that flowed through their veins, but rather golden ichor._ _

__The weed would return to Hades, reassume the form of a weed, and reestablish he roots on the banks of Lethe, just before dawn, and daydream about living in such a world. To actually work hard and not get daunted by literal or figurative thunder wind and rain! To not care what anybody thought of you. To be admired by mortals. She longed to give anything to be among them. Anything at all. But first she needed to work hard and give her time. And in order to give time and work hard, you couldn't be lazy._ _

__But laziness was in every fiber of her being. Maybe the first time she crawled out of Hades, she scraped her knees, was frightened by Cerberus, and had to bargain with Charon, but now she could do it in her sleep, and often did so._ _

__That was her station in life. The waters of forgetfulness flowed through every fiber of her chthonic being._ _

__That was her station. To be the fat weed that roots itself in ease at Lethe's wharf._ _

__And there was nothing she could do._ _


End file.
